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How McDonald's Toppled Starbucks From The Social Top Spot

A McDonald's in a Toronto, Ontario, Canada Wal-Mart store. Note the maple leaf on the Golden Arches. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday I mentioned that Starbucks has lost its place as the most social company in the restaurant business. Starbucks’ loss is McDonald’s gain But how did McDonald’s do it?

The answer seems to be pretty straightforward – transparency. During the second half of 2012 McDonald’s ran a well trailed campaign to open up to its public, including videos of behind the scenes at the restaurants and an open invitation to ask questions on any aspect of the McDonald’s food chain.

McDonald’s now leads Starbucks in the social league table, up from number 7 in Q3 2012.

McDonald’s social reputation and audience began to rise, according to Paul Barron at DigitalCoCo, because of its transparency campaign. And the rise was impressive.

McDonald’s rose almost 17 points over the past two quarters in consumer sentiment part of which has contributed to their approach to number one. Additionally the brands growth on Twitter and Facebook, two of the 16 platforms we analyze, almost tripled the growth of Starbucks. Additionally social consumer engagement also took a turn for the better for McD at a rise of 5 points in a single quarter.

….the fast food chain has launched a website called “Our Food. Your Questions.” A press release claims that the site “ promotes radical transparency using the same channels that perpetuated negative myths about McDonald’s food quality.” The site has received over 5,000 questions and has a dedicated 10-member “social media response team” to answer the questions through text, photos and video.

McDonald’s Canada was aware that people were asking these and other much tougher questions about its food online. Rather than ignore the elephant–or in this case, the giraffe in the room–last year, the company decided to confront the online speculation head-on with an interactive digital campaign designed to answer consumers’ questions and dispel myths. In an era when transparency and conversation have become the most aspirational hallmarks of marketing, McDonald’s Canada’s efforts have become one of the most interesting ongoing campaigns of the last while.

Over the first part of that period the McDonald’s share price has varied between $84 and $94, first rising and then falling and now rising again.

There’s clearly no direct link between rising social engagement and the stock price, though as McDonald’s has consolidated its social position its share price has come back.

What we’ve also seen is that its social reputation across America improved significantly because of a campaign in Canada. And I think that too is a lesson – the news amplification you create, as much as the campaign itself, that matters.Without the campaign being taken up in American media I doubt its impact would have been so pronounced.

Even so, McDonald’s didn’t get extensive Tier 1 coverage, which leads you to think that in fact the social dimension is now becoming more self-contained, with less and less dependency on traditional media channels taking up the story. Social is standing on it own two feet.

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You went with “transparency”? Leaving aside that McDonalds has been ubiquitous for far longer than Starbucks in leveraging its current position, it has been McDonald’s stated goal to compete with the likes of Starbucks and Panera, and this is a years long effort. Monetarily, McDonald’s has power over Starbucks during a recession. Even though the recession is over in the official sense, the average person still isn’t doing well financially. Starbucks offers more expensive specialty coffees and foods. McDonald’s is noticeably cheaper. All McDonald’s really had to do was update itself in a few areas. Their new speciality coffees help it to compete with Starbucks. They are cheaper, though of a still lower quality. In a weakened economy, this is in McDonald’s favor. McDonald’s offers a wider variety of food that is more filling for the price, so there’s that. Even that isn’t what really did it for McDonald’s.

The main reason McDonald’s has topped Starbucks is due to McDonald’s renovation efforts. Traditionally, they’ve had a red and yellow color theme. The whole “these colors make people feel more hungry” logic. Well, maybe, I haven’t read any research on that one way or the other. Their renovation efforts have focused on more neutral earth tones. The idea being that they are more calming to the eye, like if you want to sit there for awhile and cruise the internet. Maybe write that term paper and upload it to Blackboard, or even publish an article for Forbes. That leads to the other big push of their renovation efforts…free wi-fi everywhere. There isn’t anything you can’t do at Starbucks that you can’t do at McDonald’s for less money (if you’re willing to sacrifice a little bit of quality and atmosphere, which isn’t a big deal in this economy).

The real point and Mcdonald’s is missing the concept yes they have done a great job on there copied Starbucks look considering they were all fast food and not a coffee based company however it is easier to get people to shop cheap when they have no choice in these times if they had a choice such as shopping many would take Jc Penny’s or Kohls over Walmart if not for the pricing what Mickey D’s fails to understand that the coffee concept was based on sitting in a place where you can socialize and read or do the laptop thing and yes you can at Mickey D’s however the difference is who really wants to sit in a fast food place with screaming kids or the fast food arena starbucks is an office away from a office for many and is A coffee shop not a fast food joint so that is why unless Mickey D’s plans on dropping the big mac and fries thing and and add paistries much like Dennys or any other place that serves food as a prime do they really want people just drinking coffee and playing with the wifi and not ording food that is a choice at starbucks so I see Mickey d’s as for what it is cheap lack of quality in food and a place that is affordable for those who have no choice as far as paying for quality and a kids place with the happy meal and playground and never ending supply of movie toys.